WQ: Week 9 - The Champion Of Champions

This week I asked, what with all the quality champions across the UK, from Jimmy Havoc in PROGRESS to Kid Fite in BCW, if you were to put them all together in some kind of format (Battle Royale, Tournament, Points System, etc):

Who Would Emerge As The British Champion Of Champions?
Our first answer is incredibly in-depth and a fantastic read, so let's have Marco Piva set the tone!!

So that's one vote for Joe Coffey then. Let's take a minute to absorb that fantastic answer then move on to see what Mark Moore has to say:

"I would like to see a Bracket tournament with possibly Jack Jester facing off against Jimmy Havoc in the final. Maybe a street fight or ladder match would be the perfect scenario. Personally I would have Jester go over in the match."

Joe Coffey 1, Jack Jester 1. Now on to WrestleRopes who also put a lot of thought into their answer and arrived at different answer:

"It has took me a week of thinking about this and one name and one championship keeps coming back to me and that is the ASW British Heavyweight Champion, Rampage Brown. I'm not saying that any other champion is lesser than him but anyone who follows British wrestling knows that Rampage is always at the top when it comes to the best."

Three different answers, three different champions. Perhaps Billy Strachan can deliver us a tie-breaker:

"I'm going to pick one of my favourites, not strictly the most well known. Scottish Wrestling Entertainment's Heavyweight Champion Ian Ambrose. He has been putting in some incredible matches at SWE and, as champion, has reigned since January with a shock win over Damian O'Connor. He's turned back some of the best in the UK like Damo and Martyn Stallyon along with international talent like Gabriel Angelfyre. He's wily, has a great air and mat game and maybe smart enough to sneak his way to victory."

I guess not. So, with four answers in total and four different champions, here is my answer which may even give Marco's a run for it's money:

"So who do we have Champion-wise? I'm going to disregard the Tag Champions for the moment and focus only on single's Champions. Perhaps in the future we may do a Tag Team only version of this. But here goes.ICW - Jack Jester, Mark Coffey. Fierce Females - Kay Lee Ray. BCW - Kid Fite, Noam Dar. PWE - Grado. SWA - Joe Coffey, Wild Boar. Pride - Glen Dunbar, Joe Hendry. SWE (Scotland) - Ian Ambrose, Christopher Saynt. SWE (England) - Kay Lee Ray, Mark Haskins. Reckless Intent - Saint George, Mikey, Joe Hendry. PROGRESS - Jimmy Havoc. Bellatrix - Sammi Baynz, Liberty, Violet O'Hara. PCW - Chris Masters, Bubblegum. 12 companies. That's a decent number to stop at, and to be honest I don't know a lot about some of these companies so I'd be scraping the barrel a bit to continue.So we have 21 unique champions, two of which hold multiple titles - Kay Lee Ray and Joe Hendry.The easiest way to work this would be through a Battle Royal. I personally was considering giving a by to KLR and Hendry for being multiple champions, and hosting a Battle Royal between the remaining 19 wrestlers with the final 6 making it through to the next round. But I dunno... a Battle Royal with 19 people in the ring, while looking good, wouldn't really be indicative of Champion material, it doesn't seem very competitive. Personal taste.So, neither 21 nor 19 really divide pretty well, so I'm going to have to be ruthless and take out some of the Champions I know least about. Sorry Chris Masters, Violet O'Hara, Saint George, Mikey and Ian Ambrose, but 16 is a much neater number.So now that we have whittled the numbers down a little, a random match generator gets us these battles in a basic Tournament format. We have:Jack Jester vs Mark HaskinsMark Coffey vs Kid FiteNoam Dar vs LibertyBubblegum vs Glen DunbarKay Lee Ray vs Sammi BaynzWild Boar vs Christopher SayntJoe Coffey vs Jimmy HavocJoe Hendry vs GradoFirst up, we have a titanic battle. But we have seen Jack Jester in titanic battles before and as much as I rate Mark Haskins and his worldwide experience, I've seen Jester overcome such odds before and have no doubt he will again.Mark Coffey v Kid Fite is one of those that is almost too close to call. Both are technically sound, both are fairly ruthless champions. I think the experience of Kid Fite will take this one, finding some sneaky, imaginative way to get the victory.Noam Dar is easily one of my top three male wrestlers, and Liberty, despite only seeing a few of her matches, is cracking into my list of top female wrestlers. I really want to give it to Liberty, but I've seen the versatility of Noam Dar, he can work simply any kind of match, and I see him coming out on top.Glen Dunbar would beat Bubblegum in my mind, Kay Lee Ray would defeat Baynz, Christopher Saynt would be victorious over Wild Boar.Joe Coffey against Jimmy Havoc gives me real pause though. This is a conundrum. Two opposing styles really, both masters of their own art. Who would come out on top here? I don't know. In my mind, the Championship Tournament would be fought under traditional rules, perhaps limiting Havoc slightly in making weapon usage illegal. In that instance, I think Joe Coffey would take it.Joe Hendry and Grado again has me scratching my head. Joe Hendry's talent cannot be overlooked. He holds two titles and if he played ball a bit more in SWA, he would be holding three. It's his arrogance that is normally his downfall, and we've seen Grado bring out the arrogance in many of his opponents. Would he get sloppy and give Grado and opening to come out on top? I think so. Grado it is then, but really either could advance.So we head on to see:Jack Jester v Kid FiteNoam Dar v Glen DunbarKay Lee Ray v Christopher SayntJoe Coffey v GradoWell, the first match I've seen before and I reckon Jack Jester wins it again. Noam Dar would narrowly beat Glen Dunbar in my mind, but it would be close and require both men going to the well and bringing everything out in the ring. Kay Lee Ray vs Christopher Saynt would just be a joy to watch, but I reckon Kay Lee Ray's experiences both as a Champion and a worldwide artist would give her the slight edge to take it. Joe Coffey vs Grado is yet another one of those clashes of styles between two geniuses, but I'm giving it to Joe Coffey.Jack Jester vs Noam DarKay Lee Ray vs Joe CoffeyWhy is this actually causing me physical pain to type this? I don't even want to choose. No, seriously, I'm changing the damn rules. Four way, elimination, here we go!Jack Jester vs Noam Dar vs Kay Lee Ray vs Joe CoffeySo I see both Noam Dar and KLR trying to use their cunning and let Jester and Coffey batter lumps out of each other. This works for a while, before Coffey sends Jester over the ropes. Jester spots Noam lurking around and gets him involved. Kay Lee Ray then bucks up her ideas and runs in to attack Joe Coffey. But the strength of the Iron Man proves too much and Kay Lee is the first elimination.Jester and Noam battle into the ring and a classic triple threat match plays out. It's neck and neck and neck, but in a strange twist of fate, Jack Jester finds himself locked in one of Noam Dar's trademark inventive submission holds. With it being elimination rules, Joe Coffey is in no real rush to break up the hold, but Jester manages to break free. Coffey then locks in a Boston Crab, but again Jester breaks free. A bit of brawling between Dar and Joe breaks out, but an increasingly pained Jester is eventually put back into a hold from Noam Dar and is forced to tap out.So we boil down to Noam Dar vs Joe Coffey, and as we are currently witnessing, you cannot pick a winner between these two really. They are embroiled in a Best Of 7 series right now and this is really me asking myself who I think will come out on top in that series. It could be either, it really, really could, but the versatility of Noam Dar will narrowly prevail over the force of Joe Coffey."

So there we go. I'm going to keep this one open for another week so if you want to see your answers here next Wednesday, pop an email over to AWBAblog@gmail.com